With election seeds previously sown, the race for the 32nd District senate seat is beginning to bud.
Longtime state Sen. Darlene Fairley, D-Lake Forest Park, will be challenged in the fall election by Kenmore resident David Baker, a Republican.
“It keeps me on my toes,” said Fairley, who has served in the Senate since 1995. “A person can become complacent if nobody objects to anything they do.”
Baker, a first-term member of the Kenmore City Council and deputy mayor, was until recently undecided for which 32nd District seat he would challenge.
In his initial campaign announcement, Baker said he would challenge state Rep. Maralyn Chase, D-Edmonds. However, when filing with the state Public Disclosure Commission in April, Baker left blank the line indicating for which seat he would campaign.
“I feel I can be more effective in the Senate,” said Baker, 62, who has lived in Kenmore for 12 years.
Baker rattles off many statewide issues that concern him, including property rights, the move to increase the real estate excise tax, as well as preserving and maintaining state parks.
He also is concerned that the state’s supplemental budget increased spending 17 percent this session, saying legislators “need to take a look at our budget and how many dollars we have to work with.”
Besides the Kenmore City Council, Baker said he has no other political experience. He was one of those people who “sort of sat around and complained” until he finally decided to do something about it, he said.
In fact, it was a neighbor who was responsible for him getting elected to the Council, he said. Kenmore-area activist Burt Hubka, who recently passed away, inspired him to become active in politics.
“She helped me in many, many ways and got me wanting to run for the state senate,” he said.
The Republican, who says he is “more in the middle if I can be in the middle,” is owner of Vision Systems Engineering Ltd., which he describes as an Internet-based circuit design company.
Having a challenger in her bid for re-election is nothing new for Fairley.
“Last time, it was a city councilman from Edmonds and this time it is a city councilman from Kenmore,” said Fairley, 63.
Fairley is chair of the Financial Institutions, Housing and Consumer Protection Committee, a ranking member of the Senate Ways and Means Committee and former chair of the capital budget committee. Constituents are pleased with her work in the Legislature, she said.
Having a challenger means the race will be given more attention, she said, and will spur more in-depth discussion of local issues.
“It is good to find out what other people are thinking,” Fairley said. “If I’m not challenged, I don’t know what other issues are out there that people care about.”
Prior to being elected to the Senate, Fairley served on the Lake Forest Park City Council.
“When you are first (in Olympia), you don’t get a position of authority; you don’t get to be chair,” she said. “You have to work your way to those positions.”
“When you make friends with staff you can usually be more effective in getting issues important to you passed,” she said.
Fairley, who runs an antique business in Pioneer Square with her husband, has to date raised about $21,000 in campaign funds. Friends in the district also are busy planning a few fundraisers, she said.
Baker said he plans to start door-belling as well as continue driving around the district in his 1923 Ford.
“I have been driving around Shoreline,” Baker said. “A number of people have stopped and talked to me because of the car; I have been actively out.”
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